This week in AI talent: Google lost the man who co-invented the Transformer and the man who won a Nobel Prize for AlphaFold. The market gives Google a 3.2% shot at building the best model. The exodus is now undeniable.
Noam Shazeer — co-inventor of the Transformer, co-lead on Gemini — joined OpenAI. Google paid $2.7 billion to bring him back from CharacterAI less than two years ago. Days later, John Jumper — Nobel laureate, AlphaFold creator — left DeepMind for Anthropic after nine years.
Seven of the eight authors of “Attention Is All You Need” have now left Google. They founded Cohere, Essential AI ($1B valuation), Sakana AI, Inceptive (RNA design), and NEAR Protocol. The paper that enabled $10 trillion in market value was written at Google — almost none of the authors stayed.
The key insight:Google doesn’t have a talent problem. Google has a product-culture problem that manifests as a talent problem. The researchers leave because they can ship faster elsewhere.
What to Watch Next Week
1. Whether Google makes a structural response or just raises retention bonuses
2. Anthropic’s next move with Jumper — does a science division get announced?
3. The last Transformer author still at Google — most watched researcher in AI
Business Engineer Framework
The AI Supercycle — Where Talent Flows, Value Follows
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
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